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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

gore.

Blood, especially that from a wound when thickened due to exposure to the air.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɡɔː/Received-Pronunciation/ɡoɹ/General-American/ɡo(ː)ɹ//ɡoə/
  1. Blood, especially that from a wound when thickened due to exposure to the air.

    uncountable · usually
  2. A gout or mass of such blood.

    countable · obsolete · usually
  3. Carnage, bloodshed, murder, violence.

    uncountable · usually
  4. Pictures and videos of graphic violence and human death.

    uncountable · usually
  5. Dirt, filth, often dung or mud.

    uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

From Middle English gore, gor, gorre (“mud, muck”), from Old English gor (“manure, dung, filth, muck, dirt”), from Proto-West Germanic *gor, from Proto-Germanic *gurą (“half-digested stomach contents; faeces; manure”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰer- (“hot; warm”). Cognate to Old Norse gorr, gor (“intestines, (half-digested) intestinal contents, filth, dung; peat, silt earth”).

verb/ɡɔː/Received-Pronunciation/ɡoɹ/General-American/ɡo(ː)ɹ//ɡoə/
  1. To cover or smear with blood.

    obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English gore, gor, gorre (“mud, muck”), from Old English gor (“manure, dung, filth, muck, dirt”), from Proto-West Germanic *gor, from Proto-Germanic *gurą (“half-digested stomach contents; faeces; manure”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰer- (“hot; warm”). Cognate to Old Norse gorr, gor (“intestines, (half-digested) intestinal contents, filth, dung; peat, silt earth”).

verb/ɡɔː/Received-Pronunciation/ɡoɹ/General-American/ɡo(ː)ɹ//ɡoə/
  1. To pierce with a horn or tusk.

    transitive
    The bull gored the matador.
  2. To pierce with anything pointed, such as a spear.

    obsolete · transitive
  3. To needle or wound the feelings of.

    figuratively · intransitive · obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English goren, from gore (“gore”), ultimately from Old English gār (“spear”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaiʀ, from Proto-Germanic *gaizaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰoysós. Related to gar and gore (“a projecting point”).

noun/ɡɔː/Received-Pronunciation/ɡoɹ/General-American/ɡo(ː)ɹ//ɡoə/
  1. A triangular piece of land where roads meet.

  2. A triangular strip of land left over at the end of a not-fully-rectangular field.

    archaic · dialectal
  3. A small piece of land left unincorporated due to competing surveys or a surveying error.

    US
  4. The curved surface that lies between two close lines of longitude on a globe, or an equivalent section of a spherical or dome-shaped object in general.

  5. A triangular or rhomboid piece of fabric, especially one forming part of a three-dimensional surface such as a sail or a skirt.

  6. An elastic gusset for providing a snug fit in a shoe.

  7. A projecting point.

  8. A charge, delineated by two inwardly curved lines, starting respectively from the middle base corner and one of the two chief corners and meeting in the fess point.

  9. A sign immediately adjacent to an exit from a roadway identifying it as an exit, optionally with the exit's identification number.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English gore (“patch (of land, fabric), clothes”), from Old English gāra, from Proto-West Germanic *gaiʀō, from Proto-Germanic *gaizô.

verb/ɡɔː/Received-Pronunciation/ɡoɹ/General-American/ɡo(ː)ɹ//ɡoə/
  1. To cut into a triangular form.

  2. To provide with a gore.

    to gore an apron
Where this word comes from

From Middle English gore (“patch (of land, fabric), clothes”), from Old English gāra, from Proto-West Germanic *gaiʀō, from Proto-Germanic *gaizô.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.